


I Know You

by TheTakenMoon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Clarke, Hurt/Comfort, Worried Bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 22:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3827521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTakenMoon/pseuds/TheTakenMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic picks up post 2x05 just after Clarke, Octavia and Bellamy find Finn on a murderous rampage in the Grounder village. Bellarke, of course. We get some protective Bellamy, emotional Clarke, and the turmoil that follows Finn's actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know You

When she wakes his arm is slung across her waist and he is lying on his side, his face cradled on one arm, dark curls spilling from his forehead into his eyes. They are the same distance apart as when they first lay down, but the arm, that is a new development. Clarke lifts her head slowly, propping herself up on her elbows without jostling her sleeping companion. Dim morning light filters through the trees and the ball of tension in her chest lessens slightly. Everyone is there, still curled around the meager campfire. She breathes a sigh of relief as she registers each sleeping figure. There’s Octavia on Bellamy’s other side. Murphy is across from her, on the opposite side of the fire. She wonders if the scarred teen will ever be able to trust them again, after what they did to him. Even in the biting cold last night he chose to sleep a good distance away from the rest of them. She can see it in his eyes all the time now: He is ready to run, to flee if his life requires it. Against her better judgment, because really, Murphy has burned them all before, she feels sorry for him. Being able to rely on her friends is what gets Clarke through the day. When the threat of Grounders and Mountain Men becomes a crushing weight, all she has to do is look at the other people surrounding her and she feels strong again. Murphy doesn’t have that. He many never have that again.

Her eyes flash to Finn last. He is curled up on her other side. He looks so childlike in sleep, so innocent. It’s a sharp contrast to what she saw yesterday—a heartless commando with a gun in tow and blood on his hands. Her stomach turns at the memory and she feels sick. Her breaths come in short bursts. He slaughtered them—women, children, the elderly. He stuck them in a pen and fired like it was an execution. She didn’t even recognize him at first when she came running over the hill. He was a crazed shell of himself, and when he moved toward her, soaked in other’s blood wearing that oddly reverent expression, she cowered away. This was not the boy she knew. This was a stranger.

Her reticence hurt him though, and so lost was the Finn she remembered that his pain immediately became anger. She held her breath when he stomped forward faster than she could stumble away, fingers still twitching over the barrel of his gun. He grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her toward him. He caught her chin in his hand and saw fear in her eyes. She hated that, wished she could take it back, because she understood. She knew what Finn felt, the anger, the fear, the crazed determination to never be hurt again. That was what war did to you. She could see it in all their faces these days, and internally she mourned their loss. They were all changed, but what happened to Finn, that was a chasm she never could have predicted.

She’ll never know what Finn might have done, because at that moment Bellamy stepped between them. 

“Hey, hands off,” he said roughly, steel in his voice.

When Finn pushed back Bellamy moved in front of Clarke entirely, tearing Finn’s hand from her arm and pressing her smaller form against his back.

“Finn, look at me,” he said. “You don’t want to do this. Give me the gun.” 

It didn’t surprise her at all that Finn refused. But Clarke was no one’s duty to protect, and before the boys had finished their exchange she was pulling away from them, her eyes on the wounded villagers. It was bad. It was so bad.

She ran the last few steps, kneeling at the body of a young boy.

“I, I need,” she stammered, thinking frantically of medical supplies. She caught the eye of the most able looking grounder, kneeling over another wounded. Clarke pressed her hands to the boy’s bullet wound, trying to stop the gush of warm, sticky blood.

“Clarke!” It was Murphy’s voice, and she looked up just in time to see an older woman rushing at her with a rock. She threw herself to the side and felt the soft thud of the stone slamming into the dirt, mere inches from her head. She saw the woman raise her hand in a second attempt and she kicked out, catching her in the stomach and throwing her backward.

Then hands were dragging her up and pulling her away. Bellamy kept his gun raised with one arm and left the other snaked across Clarke’s ribs. 

“Stop!” he shouted. And incredibly, the Grounders listened.

“We have to go,” Finn ground out angrily. “Get her out of here.” 

Clarke could have spat venom at his words. He wanted to massacre these people and then leave them. She caught Bellamy’s eyes on her face and wondered if the expression he found there was enough. He looked up from her slowly. 

“She can help,” he said, directing his words to the man at Octavia’s side. He grimaced at his sister, wishing she would step away from the Grounders, back to safety. But the two seemed to know each other, and he reminded himself again that his sister was not a little girl any longer. She was tough and he needed to respect that.

“She’s our healer. Let her help you.”

The older man stared him down, searching his face for traces of dishonesty. 

“The others leave,” he said tersely, casting a despising look at Finn. 

Clarke made to move. They were wasting time. These people were dying, but Bellamy held her back.

“Our healer, Octavia and I stay to help. They’ll wait over the hill,” he said, gesturing to Finn and Murphy.

Finn charged forward again at his words, rifle swinging. 

“If you think I’m leaving them down here to be chopped up by filthy Grounders—” 

“Shut up!” Clarke screamed. Finn halted at the sound of her voice.

“Bellamy, go,” she pleaded. “I have to help them. Octavia will stand watch. Right Octavia?” Clarke looked desperately at the other girl. Octavia nodded. 

“We’ll be alright big brother. Clarke’s right, we have to help.”

Clarke turned and looked directly into Bellamy’s eyes.

“Bellamy, we did this,” she croaked. He regarded her for a moment, his expression torn, and then his frown turned into a determined line, and he let her go.

He squeezed her hand. “Be safe,” he whispered.

He took one last anxious glance at his sister and turned to run at Finn. The younger boy was as crazed as when they’d first arrived. Clarke cringed as his head cracked against the butt of Bellamy’s gun. 

Finn stumbled, disoriented, and Bellamy disarmed him, already pulling him back into the forest. That was the last Clarke saw of any of her friends until late that afternoon.

There were 9 people shot. Too many, far too many. Clarke spent the day up to her elbows in blood, praying for life and receiving death. When she left the Grounder camp every muscle in her body ached and her chest felt empty. Only four of Finn’s victims were still alive. Five dead. The number pulsed inside her. Five dead and all of her efforts worthless. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. 

Bellamy met them at the edge of the forest. Octavia walked several paces ahead, her face grim, but she smiled when she caught sight of her brother. They embraced briefly and Octavia leaned forward to whisper something in Bellamy’s ear, glancing over her shoulder at Clarke. 

The other girl hardly noticed the exchange. She kept thinking about that number…Five, most of them kids. She might have walked right into Bellamy if he hadn’t reached out his arms to steady her. She looked up in surprise.

“Hey,” he said softly. 

Clarke peered around him. Octavia had disappeared into the woods ahead.

“Is camp nearby?” she asked, and her voice cracked. She’d barely spoken over the last few hours, breaking her focus only to demand medical supplies.

Absolute weariness seemed to settle over her then, and she sunk to the ground, her back leaned against the slim trunk of a tree. 

“Don’t sit down yet,” Bellamy said in a soothing tone she’d never heard from him before. “We have a camp just a couple miles from here. You can make,” he said.

Clarke almost snapped something about, how would he know? Or I’ll be the judge of that, thank you. But her hollow chest seemed to swallow the words, and she merely nodded and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

They trudged through the forest in silence for a while. At first Clarke thought she heard Octavia ahead, but everything was silent now, and she wondered how slow they must have been walking. She had no energy left to pick up her pace.

After a few minutes Bellamy reached into his pack and pulled out pieces of dried meat. He handed them to her.

“Here, eat,” he said. 

Clarke grimaced.

“Not hungry,” she muttered. And it was true. There was something about watching helpless people die and smelling like the salt and iron of their blood that stole her appetite. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Bellamy said, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice. “You haven’t eaten in almost 24 hours and you look like hell. I don’t care if you have to choke it down. Eat it.”

Clarke scowled at him. Sure, food, but did he really have to remind her that she looked terrible? I mean, what did he expect her to look like? She’d been slicing and stitching and searing wounds for the last six hours. Self consciously, she raised a hand to her blonde curls and felt them crusted with sweat and dirt. Her face too, felt like it had seen cleaner days. 

Her anger became energy, and for a few minutes they walked faster. Grudgingly, she chewed a few pieces of the meat. She handed the rest back to Bellamy and he took it without comment.

They neared their camp for the night and Clarke could see the flickering light of a fire ahead. Unexpectedly, Bellamy stopped their forward trek with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Princess,” he began, and his voice was pleading, with none of the usual snark that she’d come to expect from her co-leader. “I’m just,” he swallowed. He looked more nervous than she’d ever seen him. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he nearly whispered. And suddenly she was pulled into such a firm embrace that it pressed the air from her lungs. Before she knew it, she was hugging him back.

It was nothing like their first embrace, full of guilt, joy, and disbelief. This was something more comforting, reassuring. It was a sort of promise, perhaps. The unshed tears came then, and suddenly Clarke was sniffling against his chest while his arms snaked tighter around her. He ran his hand over her matted hair, still the color of sunshine, and he breathed soft, soothing murmurs in her ear.

“You did good out there, Princess. You did good.”

It was an echo of her words to him, only days before. Tears painted streaks through the blood on her face. 

“Five of them died, Bellamy.”

She heard him suck in a breath and she was reminded that he blamed himself too. He’d told her as much that morning. He’d let Finn and Murphy go with guns, and now they both would have to live with the consequences.

It was his pain that brought her back to herself. She pushed away from him slightly, looking up at his face and placing a hand on his cheek. “Had to be done,” she said solemnly. He stared at her for a moment with something like reverence, but so different from Finn’s. He wiped her tears away with his thumbs and pulled her against him quickly, one last time.

They walked together toward the camp. She hesitated again, just before they broke into the clearing.

“Finn?” she asked.

Bellamy shook his head sadly.

They went to bed shortly after they arrived. All of her former weariness hit Clarke like a punch to the stomach the moment she sat down. She wondered if it was her imagination that made her think that Bellamy stayed closer to her that night, that he kept placing himself between her and Finn, glancing at her eyes to make sure she was okay. 

Now it was morning, and here was his arm across her waist, his slow breaths tickling her cheek. She lay down again and let the morning mist settle over them. When a chill ran up her spine she rolled a little closer to figure beside her. His arm tightened against her and she swears, she didn’t see the ghost of a smile on his lips. They were dreaming. He was dreaming, and tomorrow could wait, if only for a little while.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed! :)


End file.
